


Heavy Lies the Heart

by StormDancer



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bodyguard, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Melodrama, Mutual Pining, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-21 09:43:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14282217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormDancer/pseuds/StormDancer
Summary: Tyler's whole life, he’s expected that he wouldn’t get to be with his soulmate. He had great power, and that came with sacrifices; the sacrifice of his soulmate not least among them. It was what was done. It was what had always been expected of him. He was a prince, and this is what he owed.





	Heavy Lies the Heart

**Author's Note:**

> For the Bennguin Fan Fest prompt "soulmate royalty/bodyguard AU", which has so many of my favorite elements I just had to post it! Thanks to whoever prompted that, it was excellent. And many thanks to the organizer of the fest!
> 
> Warnings ahead for ridiculous melodrama and mentions of character death. 
> 
> I know no one and nothing, and none of these characters have any bearing on their real life counterparts even a little.

Tyler walks out of the Seguin’s Stars event, still high on playing with kids for a few hours. That’s definitely the best part about being a prince; there’s a lot of bullshit around the title, and a lot of responsibility that only just started feeling less like a yoke around his neck, and so many things he won’t ever have because of it, but the kids and giving them this gift is great. On the way out of the building, though, there are reporters and crowds, loud enough that even Tyler hesitates.

Jamie, a step behind him, pauses too. “You want to go out the back?” he asks, his hand coming up to hover just above Tyler’s back. He sounds hopeful. Tyler can never quite tell if it’s because Jamie’s worried about safety risks in crowds or he just hates them, but he suspects it’s a bit of both.

Tyler glances at the front door, and puts on his best media smile. It’s very good, if he does say so himself. “Nah, let’s do this thing.” Never too late to garner some more goodwill.

Jamie sighs, like he’s so put upon, but his lips twitch up. It makes Tyler feel about ten feet tall.

“Can we go, then?” Rous asks, from next to Jamie. He taps at his headset. “Car’s here.”

Jamie blinks and nods. “Yeah. When you’re ready, your highness,” he tells Tyler, straightening up to his full height. Tyler only watches out of the corner of his eye a little bit, because it’s a nice look but he’s not a creep.

“I said let’s go,” he points out, and heads towards the door. Rous strides ahead to open the door, and Jamie’s mere inches behind him, hovering with what Tyler knows without looking is a menacing glower. It’s always amused Tyler a little bit that Jamie’s glower is so good, because Tyler hasn’t been afraid of him for a second in the past five years he’s been Tyler’s bodyguard. But he guesses people who’ve never seen Jamie trip over nothing, or heard his high giggle, or seen him playing with Tyler’s dogs, might have a reason to find him intimidating. There’s just so…much of him.

Which isn’t what Tyler should be thinking, so he lifts his chin and raises his hand in a wave as he walks out.

“Your highness! Tyler!” come the calls, and Tyler ignores all of them.

“How were the kids?”

“Any comment on the situation with Russia?”

“Do you have anything to say about the rumors of you and Lord Marchand?”

“Think him being happily married and me being not interested would be enough?” Tyler mutters to Jamie, who snorts even as he doesn’t look at him, scanning the crowd.

“What do you think about the Soulmate Freedom bill?” another reporter calls, and Tyler’s hand goes to his hip instinctively, where his mark sits under his skin.

“Any luck finding your soulmate?” Someone else asks.

“Is it true you’re advocating for an education bill?”

“Is it—”

Tyler goes flying forward, and it only registers later that it’s because Jamie shoved him, hard and fast and mean. He’s turning to demand an explanation when he sees it—a woman, tall with dark hair and a pale face, and in her hand a gun, pointed in their direction.

The crowd is screaming. Everything goes in slow motion.

“What—”

Jamie’s pushing at him, then he’s in front of him, shoving everyone out of the way. His arm is around Tyler’s shoulder, and he’s tucked close into Jamie and Jamie smells like woodsmoke and something else. It’s nice. Rous is in the crowd, and the woman is gone but Rous is running like he can see her. There’s so much screaming. Everyone is yelling and moving. The cameras are flashing like strobe lights.

The car’s there. The door’s open, then Jamie’s shoving Tyler in and he’s in after him and slams the door shut.

“Go!” Jamie snaps at the driver, and everything slams back into focus.

“What?” Tyler chokes out again. He’s shaking.

“Tyler.” Jamie’s voice is steady and his hand is on Tyler’s shoulder, on his chin, tilting his head up. “Tyler, look at me.”

Tyler swallows, and looks at Jamie. Jamie’s big eyes are worried and fierce and he’s got a hand on Tyler’s face and one on his arm and Tyler can’t be scared or in danger, not with Jamie there.

“Are you hurt?” Jamie asks, his voice still slow. Tyler shakes his head.

“Okay, good. I—” his head goes up, and he taps at his headset. “Yeah? Okay. Good. We’re going to the palace. Call it in, and get her in custody.” He starts adding in orders, fast and decisive. Tyler tries to time his breathing to the sound of Jamie’s voice.

“They got the shooter,” Jamie says, and he’s talking to Tyler again. “They got her, and no one thinks she was working with anyone. We’ll get you to the palace, but there’s no—” he cuts off, then starts again. “There’s no more reason to worry.”

“I’m not,” Tyler snaps, because he knows bravado at least. “Cool as a cucumber, that’s me.”

“I can see.” Jamie smiles, just a little. His hands are still on Tyler, but there’s something weird in his eyes. The fierceness has faded. “Are you sure you’re okay? You’ll get check out at—” he cuts off again, then shakes his head. “You’ll get checked out at the palace. I want to—” this time when he cuts off, it’s a gasp. “I want to know how someone got that close, it’s—”

“Jamie?” Tyler’s worry comes crashing back, full force. “Jamie, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Jamie shakes his head. He drops his hand from Tyler’s face. It falls into his lap, and Tyler follows that over his chest and there’s something dark spreading there, under his suit jacket.

“Are you bleeding?” Tyler demands. He reaches for Jamie’s jacket. Jamie tries to lift his hand to knock Tyler’s hand away. It doesn’t move. “Jamie, what?”

“It’s—nothing,” Jamie gets out, but his eyes aren’t focusing.

“Fuck. Hospital,” Tyler snaps to the driver. If everything had been in slow motion at the—before, it’s crisp now. Too sharp. He can see the blood on Jamie’s shirt and how Jamie’s hands are shaking and the paleness of his normally ruddy cheeks and this can’t be happening Tyler won’t let it.  “We’ve got to get to the hospital, Jamie’s shot.”

“No!” That comes out strong. “No, go to the palace. That’s an order.”

“I give the orders here.”

“Not about— _fuck_ —your safety. The palace.”

Jamie’s swaying. Tyler tugs open his jacket. There’s so much blood there, bright red against the once-crisp white, and—pressure. Tyler learned that. He leans back to strip off his jacket, so he can push it against Jamie’s chest. He can’t do anything else. Jamie’s listing backwards, and his eyes are half-lidded.

“The hospital,” Tyler repeats, trying to channel every order his mother ever made. “Come on, Jamie. Don’t—you’ve got to be okay, come on, don’t do this to me.”

Jamie smiles, a ghost of the shy, bright grin that Tyler loves. His hand moves over, so it’s against Tyler’s hip. “Glad you’re safe,” he says, his voice a rasp, and his eyes flutter closed.

“Fuck! No. Jamie, come on!” But he’s not waking up, and Tyler isn’t going to deal with his bullshit. Not when he’s—not when Tyler’s the fucking prince.

He turns to the driver as much as he can while still keeping pressure Jamie’s chest. “The hospital. Now.”

The driver looks anxious in the mirror. “Mr. Benn’s orders do supersede your own, on matters of security, your highness—”

“I don’t give a fuck about orders!” Tyler snaps, and he’s shaking too and doesn’t know how to stop. “I am your goddamned prince and we are going to the hospital or I swear to god I will have you arrested.”

“Your highness—”

“Go!” Tyler shouts, and the driver spins the wheel.

Tyler leans in to Jamie. He doesn’t know what to do. None of his very expensive schools taught him this, or he didn’t pay attention, and he would give anything right now to go back and take advantage of that very expensive schooling just so he could do something other than cradle Jamie’s head in his lap and impotently try to stop the bleeding.

“You fucking idiot,” he swears, trying to will Jamie into opening his eyes. “Come on, don’t—don’t do this to me. Don’t die, Jamie. You can’t.” It’s nonsense coming out of his mouth, but he can’t stop. If he stops talking Jamie won’t know he’s there. “That bullet was for me, wasn’t it? You can’t—I’m not worth it, you shouldn’t have—god, Jamie.” Tears are starting to fall onto Jamie’s jacket, and he can’t stop them and doesn’t care. They blend with the blood, disappear. “Don’t leave me like this.”

///

Jamie had just showed up one day. Tyler’s still not really sure why his mom approved hiring him; Jamie was big and clearly strong and a fighter, but he was also barely older than Tyler and the first time Tyler met him, Jamie had turned bright red and couldn’t meet his eyes.

“Really, mom?” Tyler had asked, looking Jamie over. He’d been barely twenty-one and more than a little an asshole, and didn’t bother hiding his confusion—or the fact that he liked what he saw, because even with that cringe-worthy haircut Jamie’d had those shoulders and those thighs and those lips.  

“Yes,” his mom had said, in that tone of voice that meant she had a plan. “Him.” She gave Tyler a ‘play nice’ look.

“I don’t need a babysitter,” Tyler objected. “That thing last week with Marchy, the press made that a bigger deal then it really was, we just bought some—”

She raised a hand. “I don’t want to know if I don’t have to. And he’s not reporting anything to me. He’s just here for your safety. I’ve been looking for a bodyguard for you for a while, you knew that.”

He had. He’d been trying not to think about it. “Fine.” He’d looked at Jamie, who was still Benn to him then. “Come on. I’m going out for drinks with the guys.”

His mom had sighed, but he wouldn’t start paying attention to that sigh for a few scandals yet. “Have a good evening.”

“Bye, mom!” Tyler had waved, and left the office, moving fast. Benn had kept up with him without faltering, falling into step a pace behind.

When it became clear he wasn’t losing Benn that way, Tyler changed direction to head up to his suite. He nodded to the guard at the door, then led the way in. “So,” he said, when they were finally alone. Benn was looking around the room, his eyes wide. Or maybe that was just his default expression. There wasn’t anything especially interesting about Tyler’s living room—it was a lot of couches and a massive TV and some games. It wasn’t like, the throne room or anything. “I wasn’t kidding. I don’t need a babysitter.”

Benn had looked at him at that, maybe the first time Jamie had met his eyes. The first time Tyler had seen the steady strength in his eyes, the way he looked at Tyler like he was everything he needed to be. “I don’t think you need a babysitter,” he’d said, and that look and the sound of his voice had somehow hit Tyler like a battering ram.  “If you want to be an idiot, that’s on you. I’m just here to make sure you don’t kill yourself doing it.”

Tyler had laughed, delighted, and Jamie had turned red. “Um, your highness,” Jamie had added, suddenly stammering. “I mean—”

“No, that’s good, I deserved that,” Tyler had admitted. He’d grinned at Jamie, who was still red and looking slightly to the left of Tyler, his gaze falling just to the side of Tyler’s hip. “I think you just might last.”

Jamie’s gaze had jerked to his, and he’d smiled too, something shy but pleased that caught in Tyler’s gut. “I plan to,” he’d said.

///

And he had. He had, through everything, and he has to keep lasting, Tyler decides, staring at his hands in the waiting room of the hospital. There’s still blood on them. He has to keep lasting, because he’d meant it and Jamie didn’t say things he didn’t mean. He wasn’t capable of it.  

“Your highness.” Tyler’s head jerks up. It’s Rads, which doesn’t make sense, because he wasn’t on duty today. But it’s definitely Rads, and his voice was soft like he usually reserved for his son. “Do you want to wash your hands?”

Tyler looks down again. Jamie’s blood is there, drying on his palms. Jamie, who’s in surgery now and who no one will tell him about even though he’s the prince. What if he leaves and something happens?

“I don’t want to leave,” Tyler says. Rads puts a gentle hand on his shoulder. It’s wrong. Rads isn’t gentle, Rads is loud and boisterous and fun.

“It won’t take long,” Rads tells him. “You’ll feel better. Come on.” He hauls Tyler to his feet. “Come on, Benny wouldn’t want you like this, would he?”

“He’s not dead,” Tyler snaps, but he’s right. Jamie would be solid in a crisis, and taking charge. Tyler should be too. He’s the prince. This is what he’s for. “Okay. Yeah.”

He lets Rads take him to the bathroom, where he washes his hands and splashes water on his face. He gives himself one look in the mirror—he still looks like he did hours ago walking out of the event, which feels so long ago it was a different day. Then he squares his shoulders.

“Okay. What are you doing here?”

“Klinger—the driver—he called it in. I got here first, we’re shutting the hospital down.” At Tyler’s face, Rads shrugs. “It’s protocol. Or, protocol would be you going to the palace—”

“I’m not leaving—”

“That’s what Klinger said. So, we’re doing the next best thing.” Rads is still gentle when he adds, “You’re safe here.”

Tyler might be safe here. Jamie’s still fighting for his life. “What about Jamie?”

“Still in surgery.” Rads opens the door for Tyler, and he walks quickly down the hall to the waiting room. “We contacted his family. They’re coming in. I don’t know about his parents or sister, but his brother will be here in a few hours. He’s still down as his next of kin.”

“Good.” Tyler takes a breath. “And the—shooter?” Tyler will have a breakdown about being shot at once Jamie isn’t dying.

“Rous is bringing her in, but we don’t know anything yet. We’re coordinating with law enforcement to get more information.”

Tyler nods. They’re back in the waiting room, and Tyler sits back down in his chair. “Was anyone else hurt?”

“No. Just Benny. There was only one shot.”

That sounds weird, but Tyler’s not questioning it. One shot was enough. “Media?”

“A mess. The PR people are working on it, but—” Rads makes a face. “They don’t trust me like Benny, won’t tell me everything. I let you know when they tell me or get here.”

Tyler’s not surprised. It’s hard not to trust Jamie. “So what do I have to do?”

Rads shakes his head apologetically. “Nothing yet. Your mom will probably want to talk to you soon, but she’s on lockdown until we make sure there’s no more threat.”

That’s something, at least. His mom won’t be happy about him coming here instead of the palace.

Tyler wishes he had something to do, though. That he could be more helpful than sitting here uselessly, while Jamie fought for his life. But if he can’t,

“Then we wait,” Tyler decides, and crosses his arms over his chest. He’s not leaving.

Rads edges over so he’s closer. Tyler doesn’t know Rads as well as he does some of the other guys on the security team—he’s newer—but he seems like a good guy, and Jamie trusts him so so does Tyler. It’s good having him here, anyway. He might not be Jamie, but it’s something. “He’ll be okay, right?” Tyler asks. He knows he sounds young, but he can’t help it. He feels young. He feels like something is burning in him and he can’t stop it. He feels like he’s being ripped in half.

Rads doesn’t lie. Tyler appreciates that. “Hope so,” he replies. “Benny’s strong, won’t let a little thing like a bullet stop him.”

“Yeah.” Tyler leans back, closes his eyes. “Yeah,” he agrees, and tries to make the universe believe that.

///

It had become pretty clear, early on, that Jamie had had a crush on Tyler at some point. Tyler wasn’t even being vain when he said that. He just knew what it looked like when people had his picture on their childhood bedroom wall, and it was how Jamie sometimes looked at him, wide-eyed and stuttery. He was stuttery often with Tyler, in a way that Tyler somehow didn’t like. He’d seen Jamie sure of himself—once when someone got too close to Tyler and Jamie had had to force him away, solid and strong as a shield in a way that got Tyler’s mouth dry, but also when he joked with the rest of the security team or some of the other staff. It made Tyler want to flirt more, to get Jamie to look at him; it made him want to demand of Jamie just what about him made him so uncomfortable, to tell him that if he wanted to leave he could.

Tyler didn’t do either, and so they settled into a rhythm—Jamie shadowed Tyler almost all the time, though usually with a partner and sometimes he had breaks too. He didn’t say anything when Tyler went out and partied, and he didn’t say anything when he carried Tyler back home and put him to bed and looked at Tyler with eyes that were sad, somehow, and Tyler was too drunk to know how to ask why anyone would be sad for him, and he didn’t say anything when Tyler got up late for council meetings or ended up half-asleep during them. He didn’t say anything, but Tyler could feel him watching, the whole time, and it put his hackles up. He’d had people watching him his whole life, but Jamie didn’t watch him like other people did.

He didn’t say anything after the council meeting where the Lord Chancellor spent a full twenty minutes lecturing Tyler on how he was a waste of space of a prince and they wished the birth order had gone differently. Tyler knew that, he’d always known everyone thought he was useless—and there were pictures this time, of him having fun at clubs, of him dancing and drinking and being a fucking twenty-year-old—but it didn’t make being told that any easier, or how everyone else in the fucking room nodded along like they didn’t expect him to be any better either.

He stormed out of the room that evening and Jamie had followed at his heels like always, to his room to change and throw the pictures on a table and then to a club and drank and danced. He knew Jamie was still watching him, and he felt wild and reckless and like he wanted to burn everything down with him, so he pressed himself against the girl and mouthed at her neck behind her ear and met Jamie’s eyes. Even in the dark, Jamie’s gaze was steady and hot like a brand, and Tyler had felt it everywhere. He’d tilted his head, and then he was kissing her properly, deep and wet, and when he looked up again Jamie was still watching with his mouth a little open, and it felt right, for once, felt like Tyler was burning, and Tyler had had to look away.

He hadn’t hooked up with that girl that night, but he’d hooked up with a different guy, and he left the guy’s house knowing that he looked freshly fucked and not caring even a little. Jamie joined him in the car a few minutes later, after getting the guy to sign an NDA, and he’d been blushing a little as he looked at Tyler. Tyler wondered what he saw.

Whatever he saw, he didn’t say anything the whole way back to the palace, even though he kept on glancing at Tyler as Tyler drummed his fingers against his thigh. The bruises on his collarbone that had felt like badges of honor a minute ago felt petty now. Jamie was still looking at him, and it wasn’t how he had looked that first day, like Tyler was worth everything. It was confused, maybe. Not disappointed, like Tyler got so often, but just—like he was trying to figure something out. Which was stupid. Tyler was allowed to have sex. Tyler was allowed to have fun, and it wasn’t like there was any reason to save himself for his soulmate or something, so why not fuck hot guys? It wasn’t like anyone thought there was something better for him to do.

Tyler made it to his rooms before he broke. “What?” he’d demanded, defensive and ready to attack. “What? Are you going to yell at me too? Tell me I’m a waste of space and that they’d rather I be anyone else?”

Jamie hadn’t stuttered, and he hadn’t faltered. Instead, he’d just looked down at the pictures still on the table, put his finger on one—Tyler dancing with his shirt off, his arms in the air so his soulmark showed at his hip. Then he’d looked back up at Tyler, and Tyler had fidgeted at it. “I just don’t know why you always live up to their expectations.”

“What does that mean?” Tyler had thrown back.

Jamie had shrugged. “I mean, um. When all those people—like the ministers, or the media, or whatever—they have how they think of you. What, um. Kind of king you’re going to be.”

“Yeah, no fucking kidding.”

“So, why don’t you prove them wrong?” Jamie’d asked, with his big guileless eyes and that tone of voice like it was so obvious that Tyler could, and he wasn’t the first to suggest something like that but somehow, in Jamie’s voice and at that moment Tyler had thought—yeah. Yeah, he could do that.

///

If he hadn’t done that, maybe Jamie wouldn’t be here. He wouldn’t have started Seguin’s Stars, and he wouldn’t have been at the meeting and then the gun might not have—

“Your highness.” The doctor’s voice is soft, and he lifts his head slowly. He doesn’t know what that tone means. Beside him, Rads is straightening, his back stiff and his fists clenching. It’s nice to know, that he’s worried too.

“What?” Tyler asks. He can’t summon the energy for an order. “What? Is he—”

“Mr. Benn is out of surgery,” she says, still in that measured tone. “That’s all I can tell you.”

“What?” He glances at Rads, who looks set but not surprised, then at her. “Why?”

“I can only disclose details to his family, his next of kin, or his soulmate,” she says, still in that kind voice. She’s a middle aged woman with dark hair in a neat bun at the back of her neck and a face that looks like she’d give warm smiles; Tyler’s not sure he’s ever hated anyone more. “As you are none of those, I can’t say anything.”

“But—I’m the prince!”

“And confidentiality rules still apply,” she says firmly. Then her face softens. “He’s not in immediate danger anymore, your highness.” 

Tyler’s not stupid, and he’s been talked around a lot. “Immediate.”

She shakes her head. “I’m sorry. I can’t say any more. Do you know when his medical proxy will arrive?”

“Um.” Tyler looks to Rads, who checks his phone, probably with flight times from Jordie. “Few hours,” he tells the doctor. “He’s on a plane now.”

She nods, more tightly than Tyler likes. “A few hours should be fine.” She pauses, then adds. “Is that his soulmate?”

“No, his brother.” Tyler wonders if staring at her long enough would make her tell him. “Why?”

She shakes her head again. “I’m sorry,” she says, like she means it. Her hand rises like she’s going to touch his arm, but Rads makes a soft noise, and her arm drops again. Instead, she goes back behind the doors to the OR, and they swing shut behind her.

It feels final. It feels like such bullshit. “Fuck!” Everyone is very carefully not looking at him. He doesn’t care. He wants to rage. What is the point of being the god damned prince if he can’t know what’s wrong with Jamie? He turns to Rads. “Can you—I don’t know, find out?”

Rads raises his eyebrows. “Are you asking me to break the law, highness?” he asks. Not like he wouldn’t, just like he wants to be clear.

“I just—find out what’s wrong with him,” Tyler snaps, and Rads’s lips twitch.

“I’ll see what I can do.” He wanders towards the nurses’ station.

Tyler can’t sit back down, so he starts to pace. If Jamie were here—if Jamie really were here, not in that bed or whatever, he’d know how to calm Tyler down. If Jamie were here, he would know what to do. If Jamie were here, he wouldn’t be dying.

Tyler rubs at his hip absently, to center himself. Somewhere out there, there’s a person meant for him, who could do all that. Just knowing that makes it easier. Even if Tyler never expects to meet that person, to , just knowing they exist feels better.

“He’s out of OR, still in ICU.” Rads comes up behind him, talking quietly. “They’re worried about him, though. I don’t know why, but he’s definitely not all right.”

Tyler closes his eyes, then opens them. “When will Jordie be here?”

Rads checks his phone again, like something will have changed. “Three hours.”

“Send a car for him at the airport, that’ll get him here faster. For his parents too, when they get here.” Rads nods. “Is there really—she can’t tell me anything?”

“Not if it’s not a matter of national security.” Rads’ lips twist wryly. “And even then, your mother would be more likely to know. You didn’t buy our souls when you hired us, highness.”

“I don’t want—” He doesn’t want their souls. He just wants Jamie. “I can’t wait until Jordie gets here. I—what?” Rads is straightening and stepping back into parade rest, looking over Tyler’s shoulder.

Tyler turns, and—“Mom!” The queen is there, outpacing her security to reach Tyler; he falls into her arms as she grabs at him, her hands patting over his sides, his face.

“You’re really okay?” she demands. “Nothing? They said—”

“No, I’m fine, Jamie, he—” Tyler cuts off, choking on it. “I’m fine. What are you doing here?”

“I needed to see you, and apparently you weren’t to be moved.” Her hand is still stroking over his forearm. “You’re certain you’re okay?”

No, he wants to yell. He is not okay, Jamie is in a hospital bed and he doesn’t know why and he can’t do anything about it.

“No one touched me,” he says instead. “Mom, do we know anything yet?”

She glances over her shoulder at her secretary, a tall thin woman who was always soft spoken and always had a way of looking at Tyler like she knew that any competence he had he was faking. Tyler knows the look they’re exchanging, though; he’s seen it a lot—it’s a ‘Tyler doesn’t need to know this’ look.  

“Mom.” Tyler sets his face in his most stubborn expression, the one he had used to bully through getting funding for his charities, to turning his reputation around. “Mom. He’s my bodyguard. I was getting shot at. I need to know.”

She looks at him for another long moment, then sighs. “Fine.” She looks around. “There must be a meeting room somewhere here?”

“I’ll get one,” her secretary announces, and a few minutes later, they’re in a room—his mom, him, their security, and an attaché who apparently come from Parliament. His mom at least looks sympathetic. The attaché has a pinched look to his face like he thinks he has better places to be than a hospital. Tyler immediately ranks him above the doctor on the list of people he hates. Nothing’s more important than being here right now.  

Rads and his mom’s security do a sweep before they get into the room, then take up posts at the door. Tyler’s getting really worried now. This is more than he’d expected. He thought they caught the shooter.

“Mom, what’s happening?”

The attaché and his mom meet eyes, then the attaché nods. “We believe this attack was motivated by the Soulmate Freedom Bill,” he says in a dry voice, like he’s reading a grocery list. “In questioning the suspect, she revealed that she supports the bill—she believes that one should remain with one’s soulmate no matter the extenuating circumstances. She wanted you—or more likely, the Queen—to know what it felt like when one needed their soulmate and they weren’t there.”

The queen snorts. “Like we haven’t all felt that.”

Tyler’s still confused. He knows the bill—a fundamentalist measure meant to outlaw soulmate separation for any reason. It had barely been on his radar; it wouldn’t apply to him, and no one really believed that, anymore. You probably fell in love with your soulmate, but there were always cases of abuse or even just change that drove people apart. He touches his hip, just a brush. He should hope you don’t have to stay with your soulmate, if he ever wants to get married.

“So what, shooting me was supposed to be a statement?”

“She never meant to shoot you.” Tyler’s eyebrows go up, and the attaché goes on. “Or, she never meant to shoot to kill. We believe, and the doctors corroborate, that there was poison on the bullet.”

Tyler’s hands close over the edge of the chair. “Poison?”

“Mr. Benn’s bullet wound wasn’t serious enough for this reaction,” the attaché continues clinically. Tyler winces. “He should never have lost consciousness that fast, and he should be recovering. The doctors have preliminarily identified the toxin.”

“So—get an antidote.”

“It’s…not so simple.” The queen looks at the attaché again, then at Tyler, and there’s something sad in her eyes. Tyler’s not a kid anymore, and he knows his mom can’t fix everything—but this is scaring him. Jamie can’t actually die. Not from some—poison. Not from poison meant for _him_. “The antidote requires a sample of his soulmate’s blood.”

“Actually,” the attaché adds brusquely. Tyler really doesn’t like him. Where does he get off sounding like that; doesn’t he understand that Jamie’s dying? Jamie wouldn’t want Tyler to make a scene, but for a second, he imagines punching the man. It doesn’t make him feel better. “That is the antidote. It’s a good thing it wasn’t you, highness. Could you imagine the stampede of people trying to prove they’re really your soulmate?”

“Connors,” the queen snaps, and Tyler rocks back like he’s hit.

“But—” Tyler can feel his breath coming too fast. He keeps his hold on the chair so it’s not obvious his hands are shaking. “Jamie doesn’t have a soulmate. Or he doesn’t know them.” He turns to Rads for confirmation, who shakes his head. His skin is white too, though he’s ramrod stiff. Tyler turns to his mom. She’s still watching him, something sad and something wary beneath her gaze. “There must be something we can do. That can’t be the only cure.”

“If there was time, we might be able to synthesize something,” the queen says softly, putting her hand over Tyler’s. “But—the doctors aren’t sure there is.”

“Then make there be.” Tyler shoves to his feet. He can’t be here anymore. “He’s not dying.”

“Tyler—”

“He’s not dying,” Tyler repeats, as firm as he knows how. “He took a bullet for me, and he won’t die of it.” He turns to leave, then thinks of one more thing. “And I want to see him.”

“Tyler—” his mom starts, but Tyler cuts her off.

“I’m going to see him,” he amends, and the queen sighs.

“We’ll see what we can do,” she allows, but in the tone of voice that means she’ll figure it out. Tyler gives her one more nod, then storms out. He makes it halfway down the hall before his legs basically give out, and he collapses against the wall, folding to the floor.

Jamie can’t die. And not for something so stupid as not having his soulmate. You don’t need soulmates, not anymore. Jamie shouldn’t need his. Jamie has Tyler, he doesn’t need anything else.

Except in this, apparently, Tyler can’t be enough.

///

Tyler wasn’t entirely sure what the precise contours of Jamie’s job was, but he was fairly sure that at least half of it was keeping the crazies away from him. Some of that was when they were moving through crowds and Jamie put his body between Tyler and everyone else, or guided him where to go with a gentle hand on his side that Tyler couldn’t help but follow. But some of it, Tyler was fairly certain, was less fun.

“Bad one?” he’d asked, when Jamie had come into Tyler’s suite and tagged out Johns, looking a little white. He’d been called away on some important boss thing that Tyler hadn’t spent much time paying attention to.

“You don’t want to know.”

“No, I do.” Tyler still couldn’t believe how much paperwork went into running a charity. From the way Jamie looked at him, he knew exactly what Tyler was doing, but Tyler gave him his most innocent look, and Jamie made that sound that was probably supposed to be a snort but always came out more as a giggle. “What happened?”

“Another soulmate claim.”

“Oh.” Tyler rubbed at his hip, watched Jamie touch his arm in the same way. Tyler tried not to stare there much, to wonder, but it was hard, sometimes. Jamie’s patch had been there as long as Tyler had known him. “A bad one?”

“You don’t want to know where he’d put the fake mark.” Jamie kept his face even for a second as Tyler burst into laughter, but he was always easy to coax into laughter too and broke down.

“What? Do you have to like, inspect his dick?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Not a very nice dick?”

Jamie shuddered. “Not a very nice dick.”

“Damn, it must have hurt, though,” Tyler went on, still laughing. “A for effort, man.”

“Less pain than if he actually were your soulmate,” Jamie threw back, still joking, though he glanced at Tyler’s hip as he did.

Tyler had heard all those jokes before; he grinned. “I think it’d be fitting for my soulmate to have a mark on their dick.”

“Because you’re a dick?” Jamie dodged the pen Tyler threw at him.

“Because he’d be getting a lot of dick,” Tyler retorted, and made a gesture just in case Jamie hadn’t gotten it. Jamie flushed, because sometimes he was adorably Victorian, and rolled his eyes.

“Well, no,” he pointed out. His hands were rubbing against his thighs, and Tyler tried not to follow his gaze down. “He really wouldn’t.”

“No,” Tyler admitted. He loved the idea of a soulmate, but a prince couldn’t just marry his soul mate. A prince, he’d known as long as he’d known what soulmates were, had responsibilities and duty—a duty not to run away with the person who had his mark. Setting that precedent could be dangerous and lead to even more crazies. It overlooked the political alliances sometimes princes still needed to make. Even without that more medieval idea, there were always political considerations to a prince’s marriage, and the chances that a prince’s mark would end up one someone fitting was low, and Tyler would have known about it by now if it had. So Tyler wasn’t getting a soulmate, and that was fine. He could fall in love with someone else, or at least have a good marriage with them, when he was ready to settle down.

 “Are you looking?” he’d asked, out of nowhere maybe. Jamie knew him very well by then, all his intimate secrets, but Jamie played his cards closer to the vest. “For your mark. On the apps?”

“Um, no.” Jamie’s cheeks were still blotchy, and he’d shaken his head, even as his hand came up to cover the patch on his forearm that covered his mark “I, um. No, I’m not looking.”

“Why not?” Jamie deserved a soulmate. There wasn’t much Jamie didn’t deserve. “You’d actually get to be with them, seems perfect.”

“Would I?” Jamie’s head went up, and there was something like resignation on his face, in a way that Tyler had never seen before. Jamie was a fighter, not someone who took something like that. “I mean, I don’t think—no.” He shook his head again. “Anyway, this is more important.”

He waved around the office, and it was clear what he meant, but Tyler was selfish and wanted to hear him say it. “What is?”

“Keeping you safe,” Jamie had said simply, seriously. Like he meant it. He would be such a good soulmate to someone, Tyler had thought—when the soulmate became his foremost thought, rather than Tyler.

///

Jamie has a private room, so it’s quiet—the only sounds are the beeping of the machines and Jamie’s labored breathing and Tyler’s heartbeat in his ears. Even Rads is outside—he’d looked in, and then shaken his head and stepped back out, his hand on his walky, probably updating the rest of the team. They all love Jamie too, Tyler knows.

Jamie looks so small, on the bed attached to the machines. He’s always trying and failing to look small, Tyler’s thought, except in the heat of the moment when he forgets and starts to throw his weight around. But in the bed, he just looks—vulnerable. His hair is falling over his forehead, and his lips are slack. There’s a delusional part of Tyler that wants to lean over and just kiss him, like that would wake him like in the old stories. But that only works for soulmates, if it works at all.

Tyler watches Jamie breathe. As long as he’s breathing, there’s hope. Maybe they’ll figure out a new antidote. Maybe Jordie will get here and tell them that Jamie does have a soulmate, didn’t they know, and he’ll be okay. It would be worth Jamie not telling him and having to know Jamie had a soulmate of his own out there, for Jamie to just wake up.

“You’ve got to wake up,” Tyler tells Jamie’s body. He thinks about taking his hand, but he’s terrified that’ll mess up something else. He’s already gotten Jamie shot tonight. He’s not going to do anything more. He’ll just sit here and will him awake. “I can’t do this without you. You’re the reason—fuck.” He runs a hand over his face. He’s so tired. He’s not sleeping while Jamie’s not awake. “You can’t die. I order you to wake up.” Jamie’s never listened to his orders, if he thought they were stupid. “Please,” Tyler adds, because Jamie might never have listened to his orders but he’d never not listened to Tyler’s pleas. He reaches out a hand, just to touch Jamie, anything—to remind himself that his skin is still warm. “Please, Jamie, I—”

There’s a noise in the hall, and Tyler bolts to his feet just as the door busts open and Jordie Benn is there. He barely looks at Tyler before his gaze fixes on his brother. “Oh, shit. Jamie.” He moves past Tyler like he’s not seeing him, grabbing at Jamie’s hand. Tyler considers telling him not to, but he can’t, not with the grief etched over Jordie’s face. That’s a grief Tyler can’t touch. “Why’d you have to—you idiot.”

Tyler doesn’t have a place here. This is for Jamie’s family. He slips out behind Jordie.

Rads has been replaced; Spezza’s there now, waiting patiently. He takes one look at Tyler, then hands him a candy bar. “Not eating won’t do the captain any good,” he tells Tyler kindly.

Tyler takes it blindly. There are tears in his eyes. He thinks there have been for hours.

Behind him, he sees the doctor knock on the door to Jamie’s room, then go in, and shut the door behind her. Tyler’s not allowed in there. Tyler, when it comes down to it, is just Jamie’s boss, not his family or his soulmate or his—anything. Just maybe his friend.

He wanders down the hall, back to the waiting room, with Spezza at his heels. Yesterday at this time, he’d been deciding if he wanted to go out that night or to stay in and watch the game. He’d seen Jamie waiting, and decided on the game, so he’d coaxed Jamie away from his stance at the door to sit on the couch to watch with Tyler. Jamie had kept stealing looks at Tyler the whole time, like he wanted to make sure he was still there, and Tyler had knocked their knees together to reassure him, and Jamie had turned a little red. It had been nice.

Now, Tyler sits back down in one of the waiting room chairs, and eats his candy bar alone.

Time skews again, but it can’t be more than a few minutes before there’s another commotion in the hall, and Jordie’s storming out, the queen’s secretary trailing behind. He looks like a wildfire, and Tyler braces for the worst, that something’s gone wrong.

 “Mr. Benn,” the secretary’s saying, “You can’t—”

Jordie doesn’t stop moving until Spezza the only thing in between him and Tyler. “Why haven’t you fixed him?” Jordie demands, ignoring Spezza pulling him backwards and the secretary’s protests. “Why are you just sitting here?”

“I—there’s nothing else we can do!” Tyler protests. He can muster up the energy for this, at least. He’s doing all he can. If there was something else he could do, he’d have done it. “If there’s something, tell me and I’ll do it, but unless you know his soulmate—”

“Know his—what?” Jordie looks honestly confused. He turns to Spezza, who must not give him anything, then to the secretary, who gives him a steely glare.

“We have been unable to locate Mr. Benn’s soulmate,” she says sternly, like she’s making a point. It’s not how anyone should be told there’s no hope for their brother. Tyler touches Jordie’s shoulder, trying for comfort.

“Unless you know something—we can put out a call, but those don’t usually work, and—”

“But—I don’t understand. Jamie’s soulmate is…” Jordie shakes his head, and he looks at Tyler with stricken, confused eyes, still red from tears. “You don’t know?”

“Please come with me,” the secretary says, still curt. Tyler glares, and she sighs and softens. “Mr. Benn, please come with me, and I’ll get you up to speed.”

“Yeah, um. Okay.” Jordie strokes over his beard, and follows her out of the room.

They went the other way as Jamie’s room. Tyler’s not going to leave Jamie alone, so he goes the other direction.

Nothing’s changed, from what he can see. Jamie’s skin is still too pale and the machines are still beeping and Tyler can still hear Jamie’s breath. He wonders if they know how fast the poison will take effect—how much longer he has. He doesn’t want to know, but maybe he should.

Jordie comes in, a few minutes later. He doesn’t look less angry, but it’s tucked beneath something Tyler can’t read. He takes a long look at Tyler, then at his brother, then back.

“I’m sorry,” Tyler bursts out. He can’t stay silent for long. “This is all my fault—if I wasn’t there, then he wouldn’t—he did this for me, and—”

Jordie blinks, and shakes his head like he’s clearing it. “What?”

“The poison was meant for me.” Tyler’s voice cracks. “I—he pushed me out of the way, I didn’t—he shouldn’t have.” Tyler looks up again at Jordie. “If it were me, we’d be able to get my soulmate in here. I’d be fine. But because he’s not—I’m a prince, and there’s nothing I can do, and I’m sorry.”

Jordie takes two deep breaths, then looks around. Something is glinting in his eyes that Tyler recognizes, the screw everything look someone gets at the end of their rope.

“Fuck this,” he announces, and grabs Tyler’s arm, yanking him up his feet. “I’m going to be arrested for treason and I don’t give a damn.” He pulls, and Tyler goes—partly because Jordie’s a big guy, but more because he doesn’t have strength left to resist. Jordie tugs Tyler next to the bed, then he pulls at the blankets, so Jamie’s arm is uncovered.  

“What are you—” Tyler starts, but then in one violent motion, Jordie rips off the patch covering his soulmark.

“There,” Jordie spits. “There, now you can do something, if you want.”

Tyler stares. He knows that mark. Those swirls that looks like a star. The peaks, like a crown. His hand is on his hip before he can think.

He never thought he’d see it, not for real. Not as a fake or a joke or a play. His mark, on someone’s skin—on Jamie’s skin.

“That’s—it’s real?” he stammers. He wants to touch. He’s not sure he’s allowed.

“Yes it’s real. You think he’d—it’s your mark, your highness.” His. _His_. Jamie is his. Tyler’s Jamie’s. Of course. In some ways, it’s too obvious for Tyler to be surprised. Of course they’re meant for each other. Why else would they have fit so well?

But Jordie’s still talking. “The queen said you shouldn’t know. But, fuck that. It’s my brother.” He drags his finger over Jamie’s chest, gentle like he’d maybe touched Jamie as an infant. “If there’s a chance—if you really would do anything—”

Tyler stares at the marks—at Jamie, who he’s loved longer than he should, who now he knows is his.

There’s no choice to make.

“Spezza!” he calls, and Jordie freezes as Spezza looks in.

“Yeah?”

“Go find a doctor,” Tyler orders. Jordie lets out a long, shuddering breath. Tyler can’t look away from Jamie’s mark. From his mark.

///

Cabinet meetings, Tyler had learned, were just really boring.

People—mainly his mom, but also everyone else who liked to lecture him—could talk about the responsibility of ruling all they wanted, about the rewards of it, and maybe they were right in the moment when a kid smiled at him, but Tyler knew the truth. Sitting through all this shit about tax breaks was definitely important, but he had zero to contribute. 

He didn’t glance down at his phone, at least. He kept his gaze very firmly on whoever was talking, and made sure to look like he was very concerned about it. He knew he wasn’t fooling his mom, but in the last few months he thought a few of the ministers had stopped giving him shocked looks whenever he turned up. It helped—it meant that when he had given his presentation at the beginning, the ministers hadn’t been entirely dismissive. 

Still, he was very, very thankful when it was over, and bounced to his feet first.

“Tyler,” his mom said, quiet but firm, and Tyler slowed. He’d wanted to go—he had a date with a hockey game and whatever beer he could talk Jamie into sharing with him. But he wasn’t going to say no to that. “Walk out with me.”

“Of course, your majesty.” He waited, as the rest of the ministers gave his mom short bows and left, talking quietly among themselves. He didn’t get any bows. He thought he was pretty okay with that.

His mom waited until everyone had left, then smiled. “That was quite an impressive presentation.”

Tyler can’t help his fist pump of victory. His mom’s always told him she was proud of him, but not like this. “Right? Jamie and I have been working on it all week.” His mom makes a second of a face. “What?”

“Nothing. I’m just glad you’re investing that much.”

“It’s just—it’s a really good cause, you know?” Tyler shrugs. “If I can make it happen…”

“I know.” She smiled at him again, and he beamed back, as they walked out of the room. Tyler turned that beam on Jamie as he fell into step behind them, still in the process of slipping a deck of cards into his jacket pocket.

“You clean up?” Tyler asked. Jamie smirked at him for a second, smug with his win in a way that was unfairly attractive, before he glanced at the queen and schooled his face back to a bad mask of neutrality.

“I, um. Did well.” He gave the queen another quick glance, but Tyler cleared his throat—seriously, he was right there—and Jamie went on. “How’d the presentation go?”

“Great! Right, mom?”

“Right.” She smiled at Tyler, then turned to Jamie. She had her queen face on. “I heard you helped with it?”

“Oh, um.” Jamie turned red, like he always did talking to the queen. It made Tyler want to pinch his cheeks a little. Jamie was so—he wasn’t good at talking to the media, he couldn’t hide his emotions. He wasn’t yet another noble. It was refreshing. It made Tyler want to feel the warmth in his cheeks. “I mean, it was Tyler’s idea. I was just an audience.”

“Don’t be stupid.” Tyler elbowed Jamie. “He had great suggestions.”

His mom gave Jamie another one of those long looks, but then she smiled. “Well, I’m glad Tyler has you to help,” she said, choosing each word carefully. Carefully enough that Tyler maybe should have thought something of it, but then she turned back to Tyler, smiling again. “So, you’re coming to the reception at Lord Oakley’s tonight, aren’t you? I hear that the lovely Ms. Cleary will be there.”

Tyler made a face. Emma Cleary was lovely, and they had a very lovely ‘hooking up in the bathrooms of boring receptions’ relationship, and zero interest in anything more. He didn’t need his mom starting to get on his back about finding a proper consort. “Mom, don’t.”

“I’m just saying. You two have always been good friends.”

“Yeah, but it’s not like—anything.”

They had reached a fork in the hall—his mom’s office was down one way; Tyler was heading out to the Stars office the other. She paused, raised her hand to touch Tyler’s cheek, a touch he leaned into instinctively. “You like her. That can be enough, for us. She would be a good consort.”

“I know.” Tyler managed not to roll his eyes. Emma was definitely everything he was supposed to look for in a consort—noble and elegant and prepared to be what the country expected from his spouse. “But I don’t need to figure that out yet.” He rubbed at his hip, over his mark. “Right?”

“Right.” She let her hand drop, and glanced over Tyler’s shoulder for a second, before nodding. “I’ll see you tonight, though?”

“Yes, mom,” Tyler did roll his eyes this time.

“Good. Bye, honey,” she told him, and headed down her hallway.

Tyler rolled his eyes at her back again, and turned to Jamie, who was watching him instead. “So, I guess I’m going to the reception tonight?” he said, making a face.

Jamie laughed, his eyes darting down then to the side, away from Tyler. “You always end up having fun.”

“But not as much fun as I could have.” Tyler slowed a little, so Jamie had to end up next to him instead of behind him. “Seriously, though. The presentation rocked. I’ll go to the reception just to talk it up.” He held up a hand, and Jamie laughed again, light, and bumped their fists together. “Go team!”

“Yeah,” Jamie agreed. His cheeks were red again, and he had gotten a little bit of that smug confidence back in the set of his shoulders. Like he didn’t know how essential he had been to getting Tyler here. Tyler would tell him a thousand times, to keep that flush and that smile on his cheeks. “Go team.”

///

The next hour flashes by, but at least this time there’s action. The same doctor from before makes Jordie and Tyler both sign some forms, then she looks at Tyler’s soul mark and compares it to Jamie’s, then she writes things down on her clipboard, then a nurse comes in to draw Tyler’s blood. Tyler realizes, a pint in, that he should really be making everyone sign NDAs, but he puts that thought aside. If this works, he’ll scream it from the rooftops, if that’s what it takes.

The doctor disappears. Jordie gets a chair from somewhere, pulls it up on the other side of Jamie’s bed as Tyler, closer than Tyler’s. Tyler’s still not sure what he’s allowed to do. He can’t stop staring at Jamie’s mark. Five years Jamie had worked for him, and he hadn’t said anything. He had to have known. The world knew Tyler’s mark, and Jamie better than most.

But Tyler knows Jamie well now, and he knows how he works, and it all makes sense, for Jamie. Jamie knew Tyler couldn’t have a soulmate. He’d probably come in knowing that this was the closest he could get to his soulmate, and he’d decided that keeping Tyler safe was how he’d handle it. But—he could have told Tyler. Then they’d know together.

Of course, if he’d told Tyler at the beginning, Tyler wouldn’t have cared. And if he’d told him later—who knows what Tyler would have done, but he can imagine Jamie, who so believed he’d be a good king, not wanting to put him in that position. The idiot, he thinks, and stares at his slack face, the sweat beading on his forehead. This needs to work, so he can yell at him. He’s so pissed. He’s so—he can’t lose Jamie. He couldn’t before, but not after this.

The doctor comes back in an hour or so later, with an IV she hooks up to Jamie’s arm. “This should flush out the poison,” she tells them. She’s still clearly wary of Tyler, and unsure of his place here. To be fair, so is he. And he can’t fault someone for being protective of Jamie. “We’ll give it some time to work.”

“How long?” Jordie asks. His voice is hoarse with disuse.

“We really don’t know,” she answers gently. “If nothing has changed in an hour, we’ll rethink dosage.”

Jordie nods. The doctor leaves.

“He knew the whole time, right?” Tyler asks. He can’t stand going back to the silence.

“Yeah.” Jordie’s watching the IV, as it drips down the tube. “That’s why he applied.”

“And—you knew?”

“Of course I knew.” Dismissive. Of course. Jordie knew everything Jamie did. Tyler had found that charming. Now he knows why Jordie had always seemed wary, at least. “It was an idiot move, doing what he did.”

“Jumping in front of the bullet?” Because Tyler agreed with that one.

“Taking the job for you.” Jordie turns his red eyes on Tyler now, accusing. Tyler doesn’t have anything to say to that. “He could have been great, you know? He could have made it in the big leagues, and found someone nice who wasn’t his soulmate, and been—been happy. And instead he decided to go be close to you even though he knew nothing could ever come of it.” He wipes some tears from his face. “Stupid.”

Tyler agrees. He can’t imagine he’s worth that. But he has to say something, so, “Very Jamie, though,” Tyler points out. He can’t imagine that choice. Doesn’t know what he’d do. Knows that he wouldn’t give up Jamie being there the last five years for anything. Knows that if he were a good soulmate, he would wish Jamie had never come, but he can’t.  

“Yeah,” Jordie agrees. “Like I said, stupid.”

It’s a bad joke, but it breaks the tension. Tyler starts to giggle. Jordie stares at him for a second, amazed, but then he’s laughing too, and they’re both breaking down in this hospital room with Jamie still between them. Spezza sticks his head in, sees what’s happening, and closes the door again quietly, clearly aware of hysterics.

“Fuck, okay.” Jordie stands up, wiping his eyes. “I need—shit, I need to call mom and dad. If, um—”

“Anything happens, someone will get you,” Tyler promises. Jordie’s hand squeezes his shoulder as he goes.

Then it’s just Tyler, Jamie, and the IV mixing their blood. With no one around, Tyler can’t help it—he scoots his chair closer, folds Jamie’s hand in both of his. He ducks his head, so he can see Jamie’s soulmark. Their soulmark.

“Come on,” he murmurs. “Come on, I just found out, you’ve got to wake up. I have so much to yell at you for. You’ve got to wake up for that.” He closes his eyes, tightens his grip. Who knows how soulmates work, maybe it’ll help. “Come on, Jamie. Don’t do this to me.”

He thinks he’s imagining it at first, the change in the beeping. The way Jamie’s breathing seems easier. The twitch of Jamie’s hand. He doesn’t dare open his eyes, like how he’s sitting is some sort of charm.

Then, “Tyler?” comes Jamie’s quiet voice, and Tyler opens his eyes.

///

Tyler had been in high demand at the launch, with interviews and donors, but he made sure to make time for the kids, too. That was the point of the initiative, after all—to give kids spaces to run and be kids, to make sure they had room for activity that would help mind and body, or whatever the press releases had said. So he made sure that he had time to run around with the kids a little, to shoot some pucks at them as gently as he could, to toss a football.

The kids had infinite energy, though, and he didn’t, so eventually he had to rest against one of the walls of the facility, where he could watch everything. The donors, both the ones with the kids and the ones at the reception above, looked pleased. The kids looked ecstatic. And these were only a few kids; he knew there were so many more across the country.

He’d done this. It hadn’t sunk in, really. He’d made this happen.

There was security on the room, so Jamie was taking it easy; and by taking it easy he meant that he playing with the kids, playing ball hockey and checking the kid who came up to him to steal the ball so gently that the kid only stumbled a little. Tyler swallowed. There was something devastatingly attractive about that much strength so carefully controlled. There was something as attractive about how bright Jamie’s smile was as he played. He was good with kids. Tyler had wondered then, as he would wonder again and again, when he would have a few. Find his soulmate to match the mark on his forearm that he always kept carefully patched, or someone else, and have some kids, and leave.

It had been funny to think how a year ago, Tyler would have welcomed that. But even then Jamie had integrated himself into Tyler’s life too thoroughly.

Jamie had looked up, a kid on either arm tugging him down, and he had grinned at Tyler, open and guileless and overwhelming, and Tyler had had to smile back. Jamie stood, shedding kids, and shot a few parting chirps at them before he was coming over to Tyler. He was relaxed, easy like he never was when they were in public, and he wore that so much better.

“Alright, your highness?” he’d asked, standing next to Tyler. He didn’t lean against the wall, always a little on alert, but his gaze had flicked over Tyler, like he was checking for something. Tyler managed not to do the same.

“They have a lot of energy,” Tyler had joked, waving to the kids. “I think I’m old.”

“Ancient, yeah,” Jamie agreed, and Tyler stuck his tongue out before laughing.

They fell silent, watching the kids play. Jamie was a warm, solid mass at Tyler’s side; constant as the north star. Tyler had already felt it missing when he wasn’t there.

“This is a great thing you did, highness,” Jamie said at last, still watching the kids. “I would have killed for something like this as a kid.”

He sounded so serious. Tyler followed his instinct not to talk about that. “Maybe you really would have managed to be a hockey player, then,” Tyler teased. Jamie had talked about being up for the draft before, or the baseball draft, but not about what had happened so that he’d ended up with Tyler, and Tyler had made it a minor mission to figure it out. He’d have bet on injury, but Jamie didn’t move like someone who was injured.

Jamie turned to Tyler, and there was nothing but sincerity in those big eyes. “I know it doesn’t mean much,” he’d said, his head ducking even as he kept eye contact. “But I’m proud of you, highness. You really made something.”

Tyler had opened his mouth, then closed it, fidgeting. He didn’t know what to do, under praise like that.

“It’s because of you,” he’d blurted out, and he hadn’t known Jamie’s eyes could get wider, but they did. “Because of—what you said. About proving them wrong.”

“Oh.” Jamie’s cheeks were red, and he rubbed at his neck. “Well. You did this, though.” He waved his hand, taking in the room, and the whole initiative behind it. “You did prove them wrong.”

“Yeah,” Tyler had agreed, in satisfaction. “I did.”

////

He doesn’t know if he’s ever seen a better sight, then Jamie’s open eyes. “Jamie!” He scrambles for the call button, but he doesn’t want to let go of Jamie’s hands, so he ends up just staying still. “You’re awake!”

Jamie’s brow furrows a bit, like that’s confusing. Then he looks down at Tyler’s hands, and back at Tyler. “You’re okay,” he says, smiling like that’s a blessing.

“Yeah, bro. I’m okay.” There are tears in Tyler’s eyes. He blinks them away. “You did the hero thing and saved me.”

Jamie smiles again. “I better—” he coughs “—be getting a raise.”

“Whatever you want,” Tyler promises, which is maybe rash, but he doesn’t give a damn. Jamie won’t ask for anything he’s not willing to give anyway.

Jamie’s smile fades a little. “How bad was it?” he asks. He’s sounding a little stronger now, like things are connecting faster. “You look—scared.”

“You—” Tyler shakes his head, and presses his hand, still holding Jamie’s, to his forehead. “You could have died. We thought you were going to.”

“Oh. Oh, no.” Jamie’s trying to move his hand, and Tyler has a second where he thinks about letting go before he realizes Jamie’s clumsily trying to brush the tears from his cheeks. “It’s my job, don’t—you’re safe, that’s what—”

“Shut up.” Jamie obediently shuts up, though Tyler’s not sure how much of it is voluntary and how much of it is him still working on coming to. “You dying is not your job, fuck.”

“It kind of is.”

“Not anymore. I’m changing it. I—what?” Tyler demands, as Jamie twitches.

“My head,” Jamie mutters. “I—god, I can’t—”

“Right, yeah, a nurse, I’ll get you—and Jordie’s here!” Tyler lets go of Jamie’s hand with one of his so he can actually get to the call button. He pushes it, then he calls, “Spezza!” Jamie winces. “Fuck, I’m so—” Of course he’s hurting Jamie even more.

Jamie’s shaking his head and wincing even at that, when Spezza opens the door and sticks his head in. His smile, when he sees Jamie, is radiant. “Captain! You’re up!”

“I am,” Jamie agrees, with a faint smile.

“Go get Jordie,” Tyler orders. “He’s—he was calling their parents, I don’t know where.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And tell—”

“I’ll pass on the word,” Spezza agrees, tapping his headset. “The boys are all sending their good wishes,” he tells Jamie.

“Oh. Um. Tell them thanks.”

“I will.” Spezza pauses, then looks at Tyler, with the sort of look that says he knows what just happened, then lets the door close again.

Jamie’s looking at their joined hand now, but he’s not pulling away. “Jordie’s here?”

“He flew in,” Tyler explains. “It’s been, shit.” He looks to the clock. “Twelve hours, since you got shot?” Twelve hours. It feels like a lifetime. Tyler’s life has turned on its head since then. “He got here a few hours ago. Your parents are on their way.”

“Oh.” Jamie looks caught between pleased and like that’s far too much of a fuss. “They didn’t have to—”

“He really did,” Tyler interrupts. If Jordie hadn’t come—Tyler might not have known. “Jamie, I—”

The door opens, and the doctor comes in, along with a nurse. “Good, Mr. Benn, you’re awake,” the doctor says, and then she’s checking things and shooing Tyler out of the way and Tyler has to retreat a little so Jamie can be checked out. He should leave. But he guesses—he’s the soulmate, now. He has rights, as long as Jamie hasn’t revoked them. 

The doctor does a lot of tests, takes blood, makes Jamie say aah, asks him how he’s feeling—like he has the world’s worst hangover, apparently—and tells him briskly what happened, from the shooting to the poison. “Everything looks good,” she says at last. “I’m going to give you some painkillers for the headache, and we’ll keep you on an IV drip to stay hydrated. I want to keep you overnight as well, just in case you react badly to the antidote. We tested it, of course, but you can never tell, especially with the variable of his highness’s blood.”

“Antidote?” Jamie asks, rubbing at his head.  

“That counteracted the poison,” she explains easily. She must be used to people whose brains are temporarily moving slower.

“But—Tyler’s blood?” The doctor’s eyebrows go up at the name, but it’s not like Tyler’s going to say anything. Jamie’d hardly ever said his name before. He likes hearing it now.

“We needed a sample of your soulmate’s blood to make the antidote,” the doctor answers, and Tyler freezes. Jamie blinks, long and slow. “You’re very lucky yours was here.”

“Yeah,” Jamie agrees flatly. He’s not looking at Tyler.

The doctor is leaving when Jordie runs in. He pushes past the doctor without seeing her, his whole attention clearly on his brother. His mouth opens, then closes, then opens again, and he mutters something that sounds like a prayer.

“Jord?” Jamie rasps, then clear his throat. “Right, you’re—what’re you doing here?”

“Making sure you don’t kill yourself, apparently,” Jordie says. Tyler’s never seen anyone smiling broader, as he crosses the room and sinks down into the chair next to Jamie. “You’re a fucking idiot, you know that?”

“I don’t—”

“Shut up.” Jordie’s punch to Jamie’s shoulder is maybe the gentlest thing Tyler’s ever seen. “Just—shut up.”

“Jordie,” Jamie retorts, maybe more of a whine, and Jordie snorts out a laugh. Tyler’s met Jordie before, once or twice, but he’s never seen them like this. Never seen Jamie like this. This is what he was as a kid, Tyler thinks—before he came to work for Tyler. Before he decided to follow his mark to someone who couldn’t give it back. He looks young. He looks happy.

It’s too much. Tyler can’t be here anymore.

“I’m going to go—make sure everything’s taken care of,” he says, too fast probably given how Jordie turns to look at him, but he doesn’t care. Jamie’s okay. Jamie’s okay, and Jamie’s his _soulmate_. Jamie’s his soulmate, and he can’t do anything about it, and Jamie’s giving him a confused, big-eyed look from the bed like he can’t quite compute what was happening and it’s the look he gave Tyler sometimes—more years ago, but still sometimes—when Tyler did or said something that was so foreign to his non-royal life experience, and Tyler needs to not be here.

“Your highness…” Jamie says, but Tyler’s mostly out of the door already. Jordie’s there anyway, Jamie doesn’t need him.

Spezza gives him a look when he comes out of the room, but Tyler ignores him. He can look all he wants, he’s married to his soulmate. They’d known each other for a month before showing their soulmarks. He doesn’t get it.

Tyler wanders down the hall, Spezza a few feet behind him. He knows that it’s not actually how soulmarks work, but it feels like his is tugging him back, towards Jamie. But that’s stupid; it never did that before, and it’s not like anything has changed. Tyler’s still a prince, and royalty doesn’t marry their soulmates.  

He makes it down to the room where they’d told him Jamie was poisoned, a lifetime or a few hours ago. Fuck, he’s tired, he thinks, as he leans against the threshold. He’s not sure he’s slept in like, twenty-four hours. He still can’t sleep. Not when—if he sleeps, maybe this was a dream, and he’ll wake up and he’ll be in this room and Jamie will still be dying and there won’t be any way to save him.

Except—there had been, then. “Hey, Spezz?” he says, raising his voice. “Do you know what my mom’s doing?”

“I can find out,” Spezza replies, and then Tyler can hear him talking on his headset.

Tyler curls his fingers onto the top of a chair. Jamie had been dying, and the queen’s secretary hadn’t wanted Jordie to tell him something.

“She can talk to you now,” Spezza announces, and hands him a phone.

“Hi, sweetie,” his mom says, warm, but colored with the sort of wariness she used to have when Tyler came to her to make excuses about some scandal. “I hear Jamie’s awake?”

“You knew.” Tyler knows his mom, and it’s not a question. “You knew, and you were just going to—let him die? When I could have saved him?”

She sighs. “It’s not that simple, Tyler.”

“So if Jordie hadn’t come, would you have said anything?”

Another sigh. “I was seeing if there were any other samples of your blood available.”

Tyler’s fingers dig in deeper. If he let go, he thinks his hands would be shaking. “But you wouldn’t have told me.”

“No, I—”

“How long did you know?” he asks, but it’s a stupid question, because he knows the answer, “You knew the whole time, didn’t you? That my soulmate was right there, and he was—and you just didn’t say anything?”

“Of course I didn’t,” she replies, still calm but with a hint of the queen in her voice. “It would only have hurt you more.”

“Then why’d you even let him stay?” Tyler demands, his voice cracking. Why did she let him stay, and be all—Jamie, and make him want things he didn’t know he could and that he couldn’t have. Make him into someone different, someone whose heart would break like this.

There’s a long breath, then. “You know, when he first interviewed—I only came in for the last round, obviously. And everyone else had been very qualified, and very professional, and you’d have hated all of them and they’d have done no good. And he was—I’m sure you can imagine.” Tyler can. God, Tyler can, Jamie in his ill-fitting suit and his shitty haircut and his big earnest eyes and quiet strength, stammering something out to the queen and probably dying inside a little, because he wanted to be near Tyler. Tyler’s heart aches, for that Jamie. For that Tyler, who didn’t know. “I wasn’t going to hire him—he didn’t have enough experience, and I didn’t think he would be able to stand up to you.” There’s a laugh. “So I asked him why I should choose him, given all that.”

She lets out a low sound that’s almost a laugh. “He just rolled up his sleeve, and showed me the mark, and said, ‘because I’d do anything to keep him safe.’” That same sound again. “I believed him.”

“Yeah.” Of course she believed him. Tyler can hear it again, can hear Jamie saying that—can hear Jamie making her believe him, because when Jamie forgot to be nervous he was brilliant, and he was never nervous when it mattered. “Mom, I—”

“I know.” Her voice is soft now, and he can hear her moving. The fluorescent lights in the little office are very hot. “But Tyler, you know this doesn’t change anything.”

“Yeah,” Tyler says again, in a very different voice.

“We—if it’s better, we can let him go. Make sure he’s all right, but not have him near—”

“No!” It echoes suddenly, loud in the little room. They can’t make Jamie go away. “No, don’t, I’ll figure it out.”

“Honey…” she trails off. “This is why I didn’t want to tell you. I knew it’d be hard for you.”

“Did you ever meet your soulmate?” Tyler demands. He knows the answer—she hasn’t. She married his father and they were fond of each other, but she never knew who out there matched the lines on the back of her shoulder. “So no, you don’t know how this feels!”

There’s silence on the other side of the line. Good, Tyler thinks, vicious. Good, he wants to hurt her too. Wants her to know just how shitty this is, that the universe thought the best person in the world was right for him and he has to walk away, because of shitty things like tradition and expectations and responsibility.

“I know I don’t know,” his mom finally says, slowly. “I can only imagine. But—this is how it works, Tyler. I am sorry. He’s—if you were anyone else, I’d be happy for you.”

It feels like a punch to the gut. If he were anyone else, he’d be happy now. If he were anyone else, Jamie wouldn’t have taken a bullet for him, and nearly died because Tyler didn’t know he could have saved him back.

“He’ll be fine now,” Tyler says, and wills it to be true. “That’s what matters, I guess.”

She makes an agreeing sound—like maybe she believes it more than him. “Good. And you’ll be home soon—have you slept at all since the shooting?”

“I don’t know,” Tyler admits, but he can’t talk to his mom about this right now. Not when, when he has more energy, he thinks he’ll still be furious with her. She might have let Jamie die, and he understands duty and what it means to be a monarch, but he’s not sure he can forgive that. “I’m sure you’re busy, though. I’ll let you go. I should check on him anyway.”

“Tyler—”

“Bye, mom,” Tyler tells her, and hangs up.

He stares at the white plaster walls. Five years, and she knew, and Jamie knew, and he didn’t.

His fingers are still curled into the chair. He’s angry, he realizes, almost like it’s someone else. Not just at his mom, not just at the world—but Jamie didn’t tell him either. Jamie knew, and he didn’t, and that wasn’t fucking fair, and Jamie just almost died and he can’t even be really angry about it.

Slowly, he uncurls his fingers. He can’t stay here. This is—it’s being a coward, and he doesn’t want to. He wants to see Jamie. He always wants to see Jamie, and that didn’t start when he learned they were soulmates.

Spezza is still waiting outside. Tyler doesn’t know how loud he was, but Jason’s look—sympathetic, a little less judgey than before—makes it clear that it was loud enough.

Still, because Spezza’s his favorite, he doesn’t say anything. Tyler starts down the hall back to Jamie’s room, but he can’t just run away and then come back, so he heads down to the gift store.

///

Tyler was not, he would swear, even a little drunk when he got back to his house. He was, at most, a little tipsy, and informed Jamie of that when he guided him through the door with a hand on the small of his back.

Jamie, because he was secretly an asshole, laughed at him. “Yeah, sure, your highness.”

“I’ve been drinking longer than you’ve been alive, I—”

“That’s just not true,” Jamie cut him off, still chuckling.

“That’s what you think.” Tyler grinned at him, and resisted getting herded into his bedroom by turning his favorite den instead. He didn’t bother turning on the lights; he knew Jamie would get him upstairs soon and he was tired, but he wasn’t ready to be done yet.

“That’s what biology thinks.”

“Do you know biology?” Tyler retorted, perching on the back of the couch. Not for balance, just because he had been on his feet all day.

“Of course.”

“Really?” Tyler smirked. “How much studying…biology did you do?” he asked, purring over the last few words. “Was it a hands on course?”

“Oh, fuck off,” Jamie muttered, rubbing at the back of his neck, but he was smiling too. Tyler loved him like this maybe most, when it was just the two of them and Jamie apparently forgot that he was the prince, that he was anything other than a friend, and forgot to be bashful. “You know what I meant.”

“No, please, explain it to me. What sort of biology did you mean? Was it anatomy?”

“Only behind the bleachers,” Jamie retorted, and Tyler crowed with laughter.

“Benny! That was good, I’m so proud.” He clapped his hands. “You. New communications director, now. I want you with all the comebacks.”

“Your highness—”

“Nope, I’ve decided.” Tyler licked his lips, only half pretending. “Maybe we can get you in some tighter suits, then.”

Jamie rolled his eyes. “Okay, whatever you say. You won’t remember anyway.”

“I’m not drunk!” Tyler protested. “Seriously, look.” He meant to touch his nose with his finger. He could have done it, too. But then he tipped backwards, and suddenly he was falling—

And then Jamie’s hand was on his arm, pulling; and he was upright and caught, close enough to Jamie’s face that he could see the flecks in his dark eyes.

Tyler’s breath caught. The laughter was still there, in Jamie’s face, but it was intent too, worried; he was looking at Tyler like his entire world had narrowed to him in that moment. How was Tyler supposed to breathe, like that?

“Oh,” Tyler said, because he had to say something, or he’d notice the breadth of Jamie’s hand on his arm, how close and plush his lips were. “Nice catch.”

Jamie’s lips flicked upwards. “What I’m here for.” He let go, but he only moved a pace away. “Are you okay?”

“Of course.” Jamie just kept looking at him, steady and sure, and Tyler ducked his head. “Yeah, I just. Brownie was talking about his girlfriend, you know? How in love they were. And it’s sweet, but it’s fucking with my head.”

Jamie’s face looked like it wanted to be a smile. “You’ll have that, sometime.”

Tyler snorted. “Yeah? With who? One of the people mom keeps trying to set me up with?”

Jamie’s breath was loud in the stillness of the room. But then he made that same almost-smiling face. “They’re very nice.”

“Nice isn’t—” Tyler swallowed, and looked down at his hands. He couldn’t look at Jamie and say this, even in the shadows. Not when there was a world where none of this mattered, because Jamie’s mark matched his hip and he wasn’t a prince and they could live happily ever after. “They don’t care about me, not really. Not like, in a love way. It’s not…that’s what I thought a soulmate would be, when I was little.” Tyler smiled ruefully over it. “When I saw mom and dad fighting, about how being a queen had to come first. Or like, any of that shit. A soulmate would be someone who loved me first.” Tyler sighed. He didn’t usually get maudlin like this—he knew how lucky he was—but sometimes how Jamie calmed him down didn’t help. He looked at one of his hands, tracing the mark on his hip absently. “I don’t know. It just sucks that I won’t get that.”

“Tyler.” Tyler’s head jerked up, at his real name in Jamie’s voice. Jamie’s eyes looked infinitely big in the shadows, and he was looking at Tyler like something hurt. It wasn’t the first time Tyler had seen that look, though he’d never gotten an explanation for it, or figured out what caused it.

“Yeah?” Tyler asked, when Jamie didn’t say anything.

But Jamie just shook his head, and instead of talking, he took a step forward and wrapped his arms around Tyler’s shoulders. Tyler let his head drop to Jamie’s neck, and let Jamie’s warmth encompass him. Let him pretend, for a moment, that he could have this—that Jamie could love him like this, that he was allowed to let himself love Jamie back.

“Okay,” Jamie said into his hair, after a minute. “Let’s get you to bed.”

Tyler lifted his head, and mustered up a smile. He was fine. He would be fine. He didn’t get Jamie, because there were rules and things people wanted him to do, and that sucked, but he got so much else. And he still got Jamie, standing close to him, holding him up when he faltered. “Yeah? You want to give me a biology lesson?” he asked, waggling his eyebrows, and Jamie burst into a laugh and shoved him gently back so he fell onto the seat of the couch, still laughing. 

///

Jordie’s still in the room when Tyler knocks, in the same chair Tyler had left him in, but he’s smiling and so, more importantly, is Jamie—still limp on the bed like his strings have been cut but smiling so his dimples show and his eyes have crinkled at the corner. Tyler’s heart thumps. What if—just because no one fucking told him, and he’d never see that smile again? Just because no one thought that maybe, just maybe, he’d like to know that his soulmate was standing next to him the whole time?

He knocks, fixes a smile on his face as both Benns turn to him. Jordie’s still smiling, like he doesn’t know how to stop, but Jamie’s flickers.

“I got you the ceremonial bear,” Tyler announces, holding out the biggest bear he’d been able to find. “It’s proportionally sized.”

Jordie snorts. Jamie’s lips curve again, but he’s always been shit at covering about how he feels and he’s looking at Tyler like he can see the roil of emotions in him.

“Here,” Tyler keeps going, shoving the bear in Jamie’s direction. He has a right to be here. He shouldn’t—Jamie doesn’t get to guilt him away with those big eyes. Jordie takes it, and puts it next to Jamie on the bed.

“I’m naming it Chubbs 2,” he decides, and Jamie makes a face.

“Jord…”

“Agreed,” Tyler seconds. Light, like he’s not staring at Jamie’s arm where he knows the soulmark is. “Chubbs the sequel: Chubbs harder.”

“Return of Chubbs,” Jordie suggests, chuckling, and Jamie makes a face at him.

“Don’t you have to be nice to me?” he says, still more a whine than anything. Jordie laughs again, and pats him on the calf. It’s a very gentle pat, even though Jordie replies,

“You’re fine, get over it. If you didn’t want to be poisoned, you shouldn’t have taken the job.”

“I didn’t say that,” Jamie replies. “I know what I signed up for.”

It hits Tyler in the gut, or maybe the heart.  Tyler knows he must make a noise, but—he knew that. Knew that Jamie had signed up for this. Knew that Jamie had signed up to die for him, but he—he couldn’t do that. Tyler couldn’t let him.

“No,” he says. It gets two pairs of Benns eyes on him, but Tyler’s only looking at Jamie. “No, you—no.”

It’s utterly inarticulate, and all of Tyler’s media training should have prevented this, but he’d like to see any of the publicists stand up to Jamie in a hospital bed, talking casually about how willing he’d be to die for Tyler.

“Your highness—”

“Shut up,” Tyler cuts him off. “You don’t get to have a say in this.”

“I don’t?”

“No.” Tyler glares. “I think it’s your turn not to have a say in something, don’t you?”

A chair screeches—Jordie, pushing his back. “I’m going to go,” he says quickly. “Chubbs—I’ll be outside.”

Jamie waits for the door to close, then. “Your highness,” he says again, soft but not giving.

“Seriously? You’re your highnessing me? I think we’re past that.”

Jamie’s brow draws together. “You’re the prince.”

“Yeah, and you’re my fucking soulmate, so I think that gives you a pass.” Tyler crosses his arms over his chest. It’s really hard to stay angry, when Jamie’s lying there with his arm absently around a stuffed bear about the size of is torso like he doesn’t know what else to do with his hands.

Jamie lets out a breath. “I wanted to tell you.”

“Yeah? So all those times you didn’t tell me, that was—”

“What was I supposed to do?” Jamie snaps back, louder—then winces, probably at the noise, and moves his arm—and stops again, his teeth digging into his lips with pain. The gunshot, Tyler thinks. Because he didn’t just get poisoned for Tyler, he got shot too. “Walk up to the palace and say I was the prince’s soulmate? Ask you to pretend you didn’t know? You’re the prince, Tyler. The Crown Prince. I don’t get—me being your soulmate doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it matters!” Tyler’s arms uncross so he can throw them in the air, and he takes an involuntary step forward. Normally, he’d be in Jamie’s face, and Jamie would be in his, big and solid and a wall that Tyler had to break on, but now he just lurches towards the bed. “You knew and I didn’t! You’ve been lying for me five years—you know everything about me and you’ve been keeping the biggest secret I have from me! I trusted you!” he spits out, nearly a shout, and Jamie flinches.

Tyler freezes. He was—fuck, Jamie’s lying in a _hospital bed_ , and staring up at him with those huge eyes, and he looks about half his size, pulled in at the corners and slumped, in pain or defeat or what Tyler doesn’t know, but Tyler can’t hurt him. Tyler can’t be the one who hurt him, even if he’s hurting too.

He takes another breath, then lets himself sink down into the chair Jordie had left open. “You could have died,” he mutters, staring at the bear’s foot. There’s the truth of it. Jamie’s always pulled the truth from him. “You could have died, and I wouldn’t have known I could save you.”

“I’m fine.”

“Because Jordie was here. If he hadn’t been…” Tyler looks up to meet Jamie’s eyes. They’re so steady on him. “You can’t do this again.”

Jamie’s eyebrows go up. “It’s my job.”

“Fuck that.”

“Your highness,” Jamie starts, and Tyler shakes his head. Jamie lets out a sound that might have in another life been a laugh. “Tyler. My job is to keep you safe. If that means throwing myself in front of bullets—”

“Fuck that,” Tyler repeats. “You aren’t doing that anymore.”

Jamie’s eyes somehow manage to go even bigger. “Are you firing me?”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Tyler retorts. He’s spent the last twelve hours terrified he wouldn’t have Jamie anymore. He’s not going through that again. That’s the whole point.

“Then—nothing’s changed.” Jamie shifts, like he wants to sit up, lean in, but he can’t. Instead, he frowns. “You’re still a prince, Tyler. A bodyguard is all I can be to you.” He swallows, and meets Tyler’s eyes. “You were—before you knew, you were happy, you’d have been happy, with—whatever happened. You can go back to—”

“I said don’t be an idiot,” Tyler cuts him off, before Jamie can finish that sentence. “If you think I wasn’t in love with you before today, then I’m disowning you as a soulmate. I was never going to be happy with anyone who wasn’t you.”

Jamie makes another one of those gut punched noises, but this time the expression on his face is too much—it’s pain and joy and too many other things for Tyler to put words to, even if he thinks he understands. “Jamie,” Tyler says again. “You know—fuck, you had to have known. I’m your soulmate.”

Jamie shrugs, or tries to. “You’re the prince,” he says simply. “I’m just your bodyguard.”

Tyler can honestly only take so much of this, and he thinks he’s shown admirable restraint. He’s out of the chair and shoving the bear aside, half climbing onto the bed so he can get to Jamie. Jamie tries to sit up to meet him, fails, but Tyler doesn’t give him time to worry about that before he’s kissing him.

Tyler’s dreamed of kissing Jamie, and he’s dreamed of kissing his soulmate, and in none of those dreams was it on a too small hospital bed with one arm out of commission and the kind of breath that makes it clear it’s been too long since either of them brushed their teeth. It sets Tyler on fire anyway.

He’s careful with it, keeping himself up above Jamie even as Jamie’s good hand slides behind his neck to pull him down, keeping it easy, not so intense they can’t wind it down, but it’s still—it’s Jamie and his swollen lips and he kisses like Tyler thought he would, firm but not impolite, willing to follow Tyler’s lead until he isn’t, turning the tables again and again until Tyler’s dizzy with it, and Jamie’s making the best noises he’s ever heard into Tyler’s mouth—until Tyler moves and Jamie makes a noise that’s not a good one as Tyler must move his shoulder, and Tyler remembers where he is.

He wrenches himself away. It’s maybe one of the hardest things he’s ever done, moving back to sit on the edge of the bed as Jamie arches up, trying to follow him.

“Fuck. Jamie,” he breathes, rubbing at his lips. Jamie blinks, looking just as dazed as Tyler, if not more so. It’s flattering. Not that Tyler didn’t think he was good at this, but it’s still nice.

“Yeah,” Jamie echoes. He blinks again, and Tyler—god, he wants him; he wants him dazed and warm and whole in his bed, he wants him intense and shouldering people out of Tyler’s way, he wants him laughing like he’s surprised he can, he wants him looking at Tyler like he means everything. He wants him every way Jamie is.

“I really wish I wasn’t a prince.” It comes out unbidden, and it’s not the first time he’s thought it, but it’s maybe the most he’s ever meant it.

Jamie shakes his head, and reaches out with his good arm towards Tyler. “You’re an amazing prince,” he tells Tyler, too earnest to be lying. He even smiles, though his eyes are sad. “You’re going to do such great things.”

Tyler takes his hand, wraps both of his around it. His skin is so warm. He’s so warm. “I want to,” he admits. “I just—wish it didn’t come with this.”

Jamie nods, and presses his lips together. Tyler’s heartbreak is in his eyes too. How is Tyler ever supposed to let go? “Me too. But—there are things people expect of you, as a prince, right?”

Tyler rubs his thumb over the back of Jamie’s hand. He opens his mouth to agree; Jamie’s tone had said it all, like it was the most obvious thing in the world—but he’d used that tone with Tyler before, in a very different room, but still with his gaze on Tyler like he believed in everything Tyler could be.

And he’d been that. He’d been the good prince, and he’d done it his way but he’d done it, because it was the right person to be. But this—there are things he can’t do, because he’s the prince. But Jamie just got shot by someone who thought the old traditions were what mattered, who thought what people expected mattered.

His whole life, he’s expected that he wouldn’t get a soulmate. He had great power, and that came with sacrifices; the sacrifice of his soulmate not least among them. It was what was done. It was what had always been expected of him. He was a prince, and this is what he owed.

Why don’t you prove them wrong, Jamie had said so many years ago, and lit something in Tyler that had yet to be put out.

“Right,” Tyler agrees, and starts to smile. He presses his lips to Jamie’s knuckles. “Screw them.”

“What?” Jamie splutters. “Tyler, you can’t—”

“You’re more important than all that bullshit,” Tyler’s grinning now. He slides one of his hands down, so they can wrap around Jamie’s soulmark. Jamie’s staring up at him with confused eyes and something like hope at the corners of them. “Screw them.”

“I’m not—you’re the prince, Tyler, there are reasons—”

“We’ll find better ones.” Tyler has to laugh at it all, and the mess it’s going to be and how little he cares. Jamie can never stay sober in the face of his laughter; he starts to smile too.

“You can’t be serious,” he says, but doesn’t pull his hand away.

Tyler leans over, a hand on either side of Jamie’s face, so he can study it properly. Jamie’s hand slides to his hip, so it can rest right over his mark. “People expect a lot from us,” he says, and thinks of the future—of what they can do, together. “Let’s prove them wrong.”

**Author's Note:**

> Liked it? Want to talk about it? Comment or come chat on [ tumblr!](http://fanforthefics.tumblr.com/)


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